1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and an image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, image pickup apparatuses, such as digital cameras and camera-equipped mobile phones, have been in widespread use, and thus users can obtain digital image data quite easily. While the camera function of a camera-equipped mobile phone is now capable of capturing digital image data of several million pixels, a compact-type digital camera can even capture digital image data in excess of ten million pixels. Also, high-end SLR (single-lens reflex) digital cameras, which were used mainly by professionals, are today reaching ordinary users. Moreover, cameras capable of shooting three-dimensional (3D) images, each including a first parallax image and a second parallax image of an object from different viewpoints, are now getting to a stage of popularization.
With the increased use of these image pickup apparatuses, there are more occasions where one needs to handle digital image data. For example, among the users writing their own blogs, there are even those who take several tens to hundreds of shots of digital image data per day. In this way, the number of shots to capture digital image data is increasing at an explosive rate. On the other hand, high-capacity recording devices capable of recording large volumes of these digital image data are also finding widespread use.
When a large volume of image data is stored in a recording device, there may be cases where it takes too long time for the user to find a desired image or images. Also, there may be cases where the user forgets the details of images he/she has recorded in the recording device. Thus, the larger the number of image data that are stored in a recording device, the harder it will be to manage the image data.